Buttigieg closed at a tight second place behind Sanders and both were awarded the same number of delegates, which with the bizarre Iowa shenanigans means the former South Bend mayor is now leading the pack in total delegates despite receiving fewer votes than Sanders in both states.

It is entirely possible that we’ll continue seeing strange electoral results combined with mass media manipulation result in Buttigieg riding a contested convention into a superdelegate-boosted nomination, even if Sanders has more votes overall. We have at this point in time seen no reason to believe that Sanders will be able to secure the number of delegates needed to prevent such an occurrence.

Then you’ve got racist Republican oligarch Mike Bloomberg jumping on the ballot come Super Tuesday, with his $300 million+ ad campaign throwing more chaos into the mix. Billionaire Bloomberg’s unprecedented campaign spending power has enabled him to push up just shy of second place in a recent Quinnipiac national poll despite having no redeeming characteristics and no real goal agenda apart from stopping Sanders, which is as clear an illustration as you’ll ever see of the power of money in US politics.

Whether it winds up being Buttigieg, Bloomberg, or one of their ideological alt-centrist clones like Amy Klobuchar or the floundering Joe Biden, the mainstream narrative will soon converge around one candidate in a very positive way, with the only important qualification being that they aren’t Bernie Sanders. Many powerful people will do everything they can to prevent a Sanders nomination, whose presidency they oppose more than Trump’s. As journalist Matt Taibbi recently pointed out, the Democratic establishment has “every incentive to play every conceivable card. Trillions at stake.”

The primary argument used will be that defeating Trump is all that matters, even if it’s with another racist Republican plutocrat. If they succeed in sabotaging Sanders’ candidacy, he will help advance the same argument, as will a majority of his supporters. This argument will click perfectly in to a foundational assumption that establishment narrative managers have spent the last three plus years reinforcing, namely that once Trump is out of office, everything will be okay.

The premise that everything will be fine once Trump is gone isn’t one people generally say out loud. They don’t even usually think it. But the fact that so many Democrats who were fine with the way their nation was being run on January 19 2017 suddenly became furiously critical of it on January 20th tells you that this assumption is at play. And the relentlessly Trump-centric liberal news media has only reinforced this unexamined assumption.

Things are not going to be okay once Trump is out of office. Do you know how I know this? Because things weren’t okay before Trump got into office. America was a murderous imperialist force whose citizenry were suffering under crushing austerity and steadily mounting authoritarianism on January 19 2017, and it remains so today. Certainly the current administration has added its own levels of nefariousness to this dynamic, but the same is true of its predecessors.

By this stage in his administration Bush had launched two full-scale ground invasions and implemented unprecedented levels of global militarism and Orwellian surveillance, while at the same stage Obama had already overtly destroyed Libya and was working on covertly doing the same to Syria. Trump has continued and expanded all of the most evil agendas of those two administrations and added immensely depraved warmongering elements of his own, but you can’t even rightly argue that he’s done anything quite so evil as what Bush did to Iraq or what Obama did to Libya and Syria. Trump is not the unprecedented presidential horror that the Democratic Party-aligned media spin him as.

Imperialist elites dislike Trump not because he’s a uniquely dangerous president, but because he puts an ugly face on the things they were already doing before he took office and plan to continue doing once he leaves. The reason many rank-and-file Democrats dislike him is similar: he forces them to think about the evil things their nation does.

They don’t actually want to fix any of these problems, they just want to stop thinking about them. They’re not interested in waking up, they just want to get an uncomfortable wrinkle out of their bedsheets so that they can go back to sleep.

Or sometimes they go, “If you’re so mad at the horse, how come you weren’t mad when the last guy did this three and a half years ago? You’re beating up on the horse when the last guy essentially did the same thing five years ago.” First off, get out of here with your facts. You’re like the kid at the sleepover who, after midnight, is like, “It’s tomorrow now!” Get the fuck out of here with your technicalities. Just ’cause you’re accurate does not mean you’re interesting…

But when people say, “How come you were never mad at the last guy?” I say, “Because I wasn’t paying attention.” I used to pay less attention before it was a horse. Also, I thought the last guy was pretty smart, and he seemed good at his job, and I’m lazy by nature. I’m lazy by nature too. So I don’t check up on people when they seem okay at their job. You may think that’s an ignorant answer but it’s not, it’s a great answer. If you left your baby with your mother tonight, you’re not going to race home and check the nanny cam. But if you leave your baby with Gary Busey…

I think this is how most mainstream liberals feel, if they’re honest with themselves. They felt like they didn’t have to pay attention to the things Obama was doing, and they want to go back to that. Even though the distance between a truly healthy society and what America was like under Obama is many orders of magnitude greater than the distance between what America was like under Obama and what America is like under Trump.

Wanting things to go back to how they were before Trump is wanting things to go back to the conditions which gave rise to Trump. The belief that everything will be peachy keen once Trump is out of office is therefore more dangerous than Trump himself, because it guarantees more Trumps, and it guarantees that the underlying disease of which Trump is a symptom will remain uncured.

The disease is the oligarchic imperialist dystopia which is tormenting millions and controlling billions all around the world. A movement toward health doesn’t look like not having to pay attention anymore, it looks like the exact opposite: becoming fully conscious of all the ugliest and most unpleasant to look at aspects of the thing that America has become. It looks like turning and facing all the bloodshed, genocide, white supremacy, oppression, exploitation, corruption and degradation which form the fibers from which that nation has been woven, deeply ingesting and grokking into their reality, and then healing them completely.

The belief that everything will be fine once the Democrats get rid of Trump is more dangerous than Trump himself.

If the narrative managers succeed in installing Pete Buttigieg or one of his ideological clones, the temptation for millions of Americans will be to go back to sleep. But America won’t be any healthier. The coughing will have stopped, but the tuberculosis will remain. The sociopathic imperialist oligarchy will continue along the exact same trajectory, but the symptom of an oafish, incompetent and ham-fisted president will have been eliminated.

And that’s all any narrative manager ever wants. Their job is to normalize the empire’s depravity and keep its highly profitable murder and exploitation from awakening the masses. That’s why propaganda is so toxic.

I’m not interested in telling Americans whether they should have Trump or some centrist Democrat in office; the odds of four more years of Trump being more disastrous than under President Pete are a toss-up as far as I can tell. But I do wish the malignant belief that eliminating Trump will solve America’s main problems could be expunged from human consciousness forever.

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The president is nothing but a puppet, a kind of window display for the American people to focus on. Ronald Reagan was a classic example where a real actor was actually employed to play the president. Getting the American public to focus on who will be president or what the president is doing now is just a massive distraction away from the other hand that is robbing them blind. This is how the ruling sociopaths have always operated. It’s a con-game, and the vast majority of the public (about 80%) always falls for it.

Peter Mann/February 20, 2020

Yes. An accurate allegory from Jupiter. The point where confusion occurs is in identifying the puppet master : who has steered mankind onto a crisis of overpopulation and competitive acquisition ? . . The cause of the confusion is a religion of conquest which camouflages itself as scientific rigour. Materialism has replaced gifting our souls to Jesus . . . with dogmatic denial of the abstract realities that hold us accountable for how we conduct ourselves. Absolution is replaced by absence of accountability ! (absence of accountability is exactly what Trump insists upon for Himself – just like Jesus, Trump is not accountable for His mistakes). Materialism may seem to be an improvement, until presumption leads to complacency about the 95% of the universe that institutionalised scientists can only measure by inference. Contrary to scientific method, we have almost all scientists assuming that dark matter is sterile of awareness & life, without any data to go on. They got to this preposterous absurdity because scientists too are careless thinkers, substituting rhetoric for empiricism. The derailing of scientific enquiry by materialist ideology is thoroughly debunked in Rupert Sheldrake’s The Science Delusion. Refusing to correlate traditions and myths that document our ancestors experiences with angels and evil spirits with the nowProven substance that used to be called aether, and now called dark matter because it does not interact with electromagnetic light . . . is an act of wilful stupidity tantamount to any other obvious religion-induced psychosis, like jihad or flagellation. One thing we can be sure of : with his temperament, Donald Trump is beholden to nobody. No human being can persuade him to do anything he decides against. So, who is the puppet master who can make Trump play out an agenda like Reagan (who was a very different personality) ? Only one key fits this lock : the inorganic species called the mudShadows, documented by a much-maligned field anthropologist in 1998, in his final volume : The Active Side of Infinity.

USA-ma Bin Laden/February 14, 2020

Bernie Sanders’ “antiwar” or even “anti-intervention” mask slips off even more.

In his written answers to a NY Times foreign policy survey of Democratic presidential candidates in general, Sanders openly states his support for American attacks on Iran and North on the pretext of their nuclear programs; the idea of American humanitarian wars; the lie that General Qassem Suleimani was involve in acts of terrorism; and hostility towards Russia and China again based on assorted American imperial propaganda pretexts.

BernieBots of course will peddle their usual rationalizations for B-1 Bernie, but their (false) hero’s own words in black and white expose him for who he really is.

Peter Mann/February 17, 2020

Step O'Rafferty/February 17, 2020

Peter there is no doubt that violence can kill psychopathic predators. There is a possibility that while the act of violence is being conducted the predator will kill a few of the “good’ people who believe that they are “holier” than the predator. Pacifism may indeed inadvertently open up an opportunity wherein a terrible atrocity could be perpetrated by the predators. However people who do not want to kill people or cause them to be killed should not be disparaged. After all a world where people are not killing each other is probably a good world to aim for.

Peter Mann/February 17, 2020

Dear Step, there is a real and meaningful distinction between the elementary sanity of being a peace lover, and the degrading deceit of abusing those who take up the warrior’s role to protect the weak. Pacifism is as demented and harmful as ideology gets, in part because it glorifies abdication of responsibility.

Step O'Rafferty/March 17, 2020

Thanks for that link Adam. I read Lao Tzu The Art of War many years ago. It included many of Sun Tzu’s strategies. Yes it is an instruction manual in how to lie though slightly more sophisticatedthan today’s efforts by the elite.

Peter Mann/March 18, 2020

Being assertive is not being credible, Adam. My understanding is not borrowed from where Adam accuses. George Orwell debunked pacifists long before the Military Industrial Complex was invented, and for the same reasons that i gave. ie That pacifism is an empty ideology that disintegrates under the pressure of reality. Confronting the military is idiotic ; only a pacifist religiot is so unhinged that they would propose such absurdity. The Art of War is far more than Adam Erin’s oversimplified deconstruction. When a book has the respect of generations of military thinkers, it is more than a manual on how to lie, dopey. Your mother taught you to lie, Adam ; evidently you’ve yet to see how self-harming lying is. Let me tell you how disgusting it is to see your infantile narcissism pretending to be an authority on one of mankind’s most profound questions : whether to allow a self-aggrandising liar like you to continue breathing.

Greg/February 17, 2020

Is your initial accusation of ‘grievous pacifism’ levelled at Mr. Bin Laden’s concern toward Sander’s asserting support for pre-emptive strike initiatives? If not, what is it? If so, then you’re not well.

Peter Mann/February 17, 2020

Greg/February 17, 2020

I asked you a very simple, very clear question. The question is acutely pertinent to the understanding of your meaning within your two postings, and it indicates why that is so. Your blusterous avoidance of the question signals your inability to answer it, either because you do not want to reveal the essential wrongness of your initial criticism levelled at Mr Bin Laden, or because you do not actually know what you are talking about. Are you in fact admitting to the latter by saying that “Based on available information, i am unable to clarify your bewilderment…”?

Just as objective thinking can fail to see what it can’t measure, ungrounded imagination can see things that simply do not, nor never will exist. There is a fine line between enlightenment and madness. Be careful. Moreover, try to be a bit more pleasant. You’re starting to sound like a self-infatuated wanker.

Greg/February 18, 2020

The issue you raise about Sander’s credentials on this matter is a significant one as he is the only electorally viable candidate in this upcoming election that might possibly re-direct the death-march of the status quo. To what extent and in what way(s), given all factors, we don’t know. We do know that all the other electorally viable candidates are toxic beyond redemption.

I’m not so certain that his real character on this critical issue is as bad as you pose it, however it may be. Remember that Trump had to say things he didn’t mean to get elected and then renounced them. Sanders may well be doing the same in an inverse manner.

The sad fact is that there is a limit to what electors will tolerate being told the truth about. That limit is gravely reduced by malicious MSM distortion and attack. There is a limit to the scope of such that can be withstood by an individual candidate working at odds with their party machine. The banal ugliness of this distortion field is evidenced by our erstwhile correspondent to this thread accusing you of being an irresponsible pacifist for wanting to stop interventionist wars. At least that is the logical inference of his comment given his refusal to clarify it any further. Such refusal itself stands as a white-noise indicator. Sanders may well be seeking to limit the scope across which he has to manage unreasonable hostility toward him and his campaign. Maybe not, but what are the other options?

Peter Mann/February 18, 2020

I accuse pacifists of irresponsibly wanting to stop wars indescriminately. Pacifism is foolish because at bottom it is cowardly and miserly, instead of wise and generous. Cowardly denial of any reality weakens the sanity and moral fibre of a community. Those who pretend that ideology trumps a proper understanding are a bloody menace, regardless of the topic. When nations are committed by their plutocrats or their priests to a predatory or domineering agenda, denying the reality of the threat they pose to the evolving of civilisation becomes treasonous, regardless of any façade of moral superiority.

Bernie strikes me as a truthful man. His use of language is precise. He openly defies the conformists by calling himself a socialist. There is no hidden agenda with Bernie. His consistency over the years shows he is not an opportunist. Bernie’s first priority is being real, and this is what gives people the enthusiasm for him as a world leader. I agree that undisciplined thinkers have a high resistance to information which contradicts their beliefs. You are precisely correct in calling it a distortion field. This is a nonHuman malign influence, against which our permitted religions provide the opposite of protection . . . by demanding obedience and blindingBelief.

Sanders has set an admirable example of defying this distorting force, by reasoning through conflicts of interest in a pragmatic and innovative search for the best solution for all concerned. It is reasonable to think that Bernie would apply comparable dueDiligence to the application of military force, consistent with his perceptive social vision.

Greg/February 18, 2020

This answer is too loose and far too speculative for the very evident context the question is set within. this context relates to current and preceding US agenda of interventionist and pre-emptive attacks upon sovereign governments. This includes via proxy forces, economic sanction and, potentially, direct invasion. It is not realistic to frame the question put to Sanders in any other way.

Thus, which of the US’s current conflicts are of a merit that could justify a pre-emptive strike by the standard you are applying?

Peter Mann/February 19, 2020

Greg the incomprehensible hate monger is ” too loose and far too speculative” to critique topics he does not understand. The question he accuses me of fudging is not even stated within his pompous verbosity. Questions finish with one of these symbols “?” Take not, Greg the uglyTroll.

Greg/February 20, 2020

Then, in an attempt to de-fog your obfuscation, I repeated the exact same question.

Then, in a further attempt to get some definition from you of your pacifism assertion, I asked: “which of the US’s current conflicts are of a merit that could justify a pre-emptive strike by the standard you are applying?”

But you say I’ve put no questions to you! The only sound prognosis of all this is that you’re an idiot. Goodbye.

Peter Mann/February 20, 2020

To your first intelligible but convoluted question, the answer is yes. As for your second question, to give a workmanlike answer would require a substantial treatise. Since you persisting insulting my character and intelligence, my answer to your second coherent question is Go Masturbate! Horrible little egomaniac.

Greg/February 20, 2020

As I pre-empted in suffix to my first question, oh so long ago now, answering it in the affirmative would mean that you’re not well. So there we have it. The interim has simply provided lurid dimension upon that finding.

/

Peter Mann/February 20, 2020

Same as Donald Trump, Greg oscillates between incoherent belligerence and tearful self-pity. As a psychiatric diagnostician, Greg would best be used as a granulated protein supplement for chooks, who have a sunny & companionable disposition, while surpassing Greg in both thinking and decency. Nothing is more toxic than Gregses who derive their sense of identity from a mud shadow parasite. So i shall leave Greg to stew in what he cannot escape (himself) . . . unpleasant people are their own punishment. Howzat for divine justice .!.

Brian/February 14, 2020

Hi, Caitlin. I think most of the Democrats and Independents whom I know do NOT believe that everything will be fine once Trump is gone. I also think that you have much more in common with them than you do Trump, as do most Americans. If we assume that Trump will lose the popular vote again in 2020 — and that this time the Democratic presidential nominee WILL visit Wisconsin at least once, Trump should lose the Electoral College. I say this based on 2020 general-election polls pitting Trump versus any one of several leading Democrats — Sanders, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Warren, Biden. It is clear that Trump, who got only 46% of voters in 2016, remains an extremely unpopular president more than three years into his term. These 2020 general-election polls show that Trump is trailing many of the leading Democrats in states that he carried against Hillary Clinton in 2016 — states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Arizona. Trump already has alienated the majority of Americans, who told pollsters that they believe Trump abused his power and should have been removed by the Senate impeachment trial. So, Trump will remain unpopular between now and Election Day 2020 — and he will lose the Electoral College this time. Does this mean everything will be fine on the evening of January 20, 2021, after a new president has been inaugurated? No. Absolutely not. Americans, including the vast majority of Democrats and even a majority of Independents, want the U.S. Government to address the need to provide healthcare coverage for all Americans. I think it would be wise to offer a public option, but also to allow private insurance companies to compete in the healthcare marketplace with the public option, at least for a couple of years. Those first 24 months of competition will show all Americans of all political persuasions how the public and private options compare in terms of health care benefits, health care premiums, and out-of-pocket costs such as deductibles and co-pays. Those first 24 months of competition will also provide coverage to the many millions of Americans who still remain uninsured today in February 2020, even after Obamacare became the law of the land, and after Trump, McConnell, and then-Speaker Ryan tried to repeal and replace Obamacare during the first two years of the Trump presidency. The Republicans failed to repeal and replace, but that does not mean that everything is fine with health care. Obamacare was a first step, and I think it would be fair to acknowledge that it required a lot of political capital for Obama to get Obamacare enacted — but it was enacted despite opposition from the Republicans. So, let’s give Obama some credit for accomplishing at least a first step in healthcare reform, which is more than could be said for Obama’s predecessors Bush 43, Bill Clinton, Bush 41, and Reagan. Two of the best parts of Obamacare include: (1) the prohibition against health insurance companies from discriminating against families with at least one family member who has a pre-existing health condition; and (2) the provision that allows parents to extend their family healthcare coverage to their adult children until the age of 26, which gives those young adults the health coverage they need during their undergraduate and graduate studies. But Democrats and most Independents understand that Obamacare didn’t address all of America’s healthcare needs. There is more work to be done, but Democrats need to find a way that is politically feasible and budgetarily sustainable to advance solutions for those healthcare problems. Whether the Democrats nominate Sanders, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Warren, Biden or even Mike Bloomberg, the work to advance those solutions will be a top priority for the next four or eight years of a Democratic Administration. And there are other issues where Democrats and Independents can come together in the next Congress, which hopefully will be led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate leader Chuck Schumer. This will be an opportunity to tackle not only healthcare reform, but also immigration reform, infrastructure overhauls, student-debt forgiveness, scaling back military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, climate-change energy reform, studying and reducing gun violence, establishing a private-public job training venture for the 21st century, a higher minimum wage, and restoring America’s foreign serve as well as America’s multi-national alliances. But the way to move all of these issues forward will be for centrists and progressives to negotiate on each of these issues to put together sensible legislation that is politically feasible and budgetarily sustainable. We can do this, but we need to be respectful and inclusive of all Democrats (Centrists and Progressives), Independents, and rational Republicans (there are fewer than there used to be, but let’s include the few who remain). Despite Trump’s efforts to advance the interests of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, America is still a democracy and we will find ways to address the agendas of Centrist and Progressive Democrats. Don’t be afraid of working together to accomplish those legislative victories. They will come. The only danger ahead is for the Republican Party, which has become a shell of its former self and which likely will lose not only the presidency as a result of the 2020 General Election, but also majority control of the U.S. Senate. So, let’s stay focused on winning those elections, negotiating that much-needed legislation to get things done, and sustaining this Democratic agenda for the long term so that we never have to experience the kind of tyranny and corruption that Trump and McConnell have foisted upon America these last three years.

Khatika/February 14, 2020

Greg/February 15, 2020

“Despite Trump’s efforts to advance the interests of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, America is still a democracy…”

That three lump nugget of absolute horse-shit well summarises the basic character of the less succinct elements compiled into your agonised ramble. It has the integrity and usefulness of a UV-stricken synthetic blanket. You need to waive yourself something much more substantial to wear into the future if you care about yourself and significant others. Or maybe you’re a party shill paid to disseminate this concocted nonsense. If so, live it up while you can. The future is bleak for all if such garbage as yours continues to be peddled and consumed as truth. The wealthy will simply be able to buy denial for a bit longer than the rest.

S/February 15, 2020

Greg your language skills are astounding! If I ever write a book I’d like to invite you to edit it. Although I fear that most of my book will end up in the rubbish bin! Thanks for taking part in Caitlin’s forum.

Greg/February 15, 2020

I’m humbled by your praise, truly, as I’m ready and willing to read your book draft when it’s ready. I still may even if you do throw it into the rubbish bin as I empty them for a living and enjoy taking things out that look to have arrived there with some use or interest left in them. I empty rubbish bins in SE Qld. Where do you fill them?

Step O'Rafferty/February 15, 2020

Greg/February 15, 2020

Probably a bit far for me to professionally stumble upon your discards. I know Kilcunda and the surrounding coastline quite well from many trips that way in the 70’s and 80’s. Has it succumbed to the blight of suburban extrusion? Would be a miracle if not. I might be revisiting those parts later this year. Maybe we could have a coffee and discuss your manuscript?

S. Black/February 14, 2020

There is a huge hole in your reasoning in this piece, Caitlin. Many if not most educated somewhat upper middle-class Americans hate and fear Trump not because they’re suddenly “paying attention” to what’s going on, but because the media has fed them fear and outrage 24/7 for the past three years just as it fed them satisfaction and optimism throughout Obama’s two terms. Actually, I wish they would pay attention. Instead, they’re sucking on the friendly just-like-us teat of MSNBC, CNN, NPR and PBS who tell them whom to love and whom to hate. They certainly don’t want anyone, especially not that noisy Bernie crowd, to disturb their self-satisfied slumber.

lms/February 14, 2020

Everything you say is right on (2/14). Except that when you compared the present president to the previous you used foreign policy as the metric for comparison. But we need to look at the domestic policy: the racism and its attendant travel bans and inhumane treatment toward asylum seekers and refugees; the tax break for wealthy investors; defunding for family planning clinics that give referrals for abortions; the rollback of regulations protecting our water and air; climate denialism to the point of deleting the science behind it from government websites. I could go on but that should be enough to convince anyone that this guy has to go.

And there is one other thing that needs to be addressed: being just a president has too many constraints, although most of us would say there aren’t nearly enough. This man would much rather be a dictator. You’re right – they’ll find a way to screw Bernie but his ideology is gravitating to the mainstream and we might get there someday. Keeping this president in office and the toadies, wing-nuts, and bigots that slouch behind him can only take us farther away from that goal.

Khatika/February 14, 2020

Again. Us vs them accomplishes nothing. Admit there are two viewpoints to every issue. promote cooperation between them regardless who is in the White House. Republicans are not evil any more than democrats.

Levi Tate/February 14, 2020

Abbie/February 14, 2020

If anyone thinks that supporting a mainstream Democrat is a stand against war, then consider this ….. The Democratic Party has only opposed two wars in a history that is as long as Americas. The most recent case only occurred when the grassroots rebelled against an unpopular war and rejected the leadership of the pro-war Democrats who had started the war. This was in 1972 when a revolt of the party membership nominated Sen. McGovern over the howls of pain of the mainstream Dems. The only other time the Democrats opposed a war was in the 1860’s, when the Democrats opposed the American Civil War because the Democrats were at that time the pro-slavery party.

Bobbie/February 14, 2020

I grew up during Vietnam. In those days, the Republicans used to point out that the Democrats had been in power at the beginning of every war thus far in that century. And it was true….. World War One (Wilson-D), World War Two (FDR-D), Korean War (Truman-D), Vietnam War (Kennedy-D).

Joe/February 14, 2020

Robespierre/February 14, 2020

Carol Law/February 14, 2020

Thank you for intelligent analysis and wit about the U.S. election. I’m hooked up with folks, especially women, around our country who are working very hard spreading Sanders’s message and I get a lot of clarity, up-to-date observations and great phraseology that others are liking alot. So please keep this stuff coming, we might have a chance at victory. We will keep up our faith and the fight.

Robespierre/February 14, 2020

Thank you for your service! Thank you for getting out there and fighting, instead of just whinging uselessly on the internet like so, so many others. Remember, the only sure way to lose a fight is to quit fighting. Keep fighting! With age, one sees that even when a battle is lost, just the willingness to stand up and fight does indeed change the world. Thus, I salute those who stand up and fight!

Cults of personality can be NEGATIVE a well as POSITIVE, Trump as vile destroyer of all is as much an authoritarian belief structure as Trump heroic savior of all, in ether case one person stands in for massive numbers of persons who are ignored as if they had no influence when this is not even remotely the case. Agreed with you on all counts. We can get rid of Trump, we can not get rid of his followers

Khatika/February 14, 2020

You are delusional if that is what you got out of this article. The problem is not Trump or his followers any more than leftist socialists. It is the corrupt system itself which has spiraled out of control. We need both sides working together. Your us vs them attitude is the problem.

Robespierre/February 14, 2020

There are no “leftist socialists” in America. Well, there may be one or two left, but nobody ever knows about them. And if they aren’t part of the world’s largest prison population, they will be soon. What Bernie is, and his followers, despite the constant propaganda by the rightist fascists, is really just what mainstream Democrats were about 40 years ago. Bernie’s platform is basically the mainstream Democrat platform that Ted Kennedy ran on in 1980 against Carter who was considered a right-of-center, non-mainstream Democrat. Of course, today’s mainstream Democrats make Richard Nixon look like a leftist radical.

I am sorry to point out how much farther to the left Richard Nixon was, compared to Bernie Sanders. You think I joke, but look at all of his policies and presidential acts:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Richard_Nixon I do kinda’ like Bernie, and I voted for him in 2016, but I’m voting for Tulsi Gabbard in this primary, then Green again, most likely…

Sandi/February 15, 2020

Tulsi is not so left, she is young, she will grow, she is interesting. She was inspired by Bernie and I feel she is covering his back while taking the landmines and running trouble. She is fulfilling sort of what Jill attempted to do.

MEL/February 14, 2020

Cults of personality can be NEGATIVE a well as POSITIVE, Trump as vile destroyer of all is as much an authoritarian belief structure as Trump heroic savior of all, in ether case one person stands in for massive numbers of persons who are ignored as if they had no influence when this is not even remotely the case. Agreed with you on all counts. We can get rid of Trump, we can not get rid of his folllowers

phil de/February 13, 2020

pwlsax/February 13, 2020

What may be dangerous…and here I feel we must give the devil his due…is undercutting capitalism. The nature of capitalism could be called tantric: the good depends completely on the bad (but not vice versa). The saints can’t exist without the sinners, and generally can’t coexist with them for very long. Can this nation survive without imperialism and rampant inequity? Millions are convinced we cannot…to the point where questioning those institutions equals questioning democracy itself, and the candidate who does becomes public enemy number two.

Robespierre/February 14, 2020

Peter Mann/February 15, 2020

Bobespierre has thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Religious fanatics do not hold a monopoly on information about devils. Evil spirits are featured in the realityMap of every human culture, and 200 years of materialist denial has not changed the underlying reality. Denial has the effect of ignoring an enemy which our ancestors all took seriously , leaving us undefended and blind to dangers . . . which i can assure you are as real as gravity. Being aGnostic is a disadvantage : once we realise that heightened awareness is real and explorable, our discernment of subtle nuances is motivated, because then we have a glimpse of how abstract values decide our destiny.

“this nation” of “imperialism and rampant inequity” is NOT the nation I want to “survive”. I want a nation of openly organizing for the benefit of all. Only a solid foundation of mutual respect with inclusive cooperation can support a minimal tolerance for private manipulation for the benefit of self. We already ‘risked’ capitalism. How are you liking it? Most don’t. Few do. Conflating “democracy” with “imperialism and rampant inequity” is insidious self-deception. Forget your polarized “saints” and “sinners” analysis. IF there be the “Millions are convinced…” as you claim, they are brain-washed and/or beneficiaries of such injustices and therefore NOT the people to be pacifying.

Maxim Gorki/February 13, 2020

We need to stop praising our “Brave Men and Women in Uniform” for their “Service”. Murdering people isn’t a “Service”. They only join because they’ve got nowhere else to go. Thanking veterans for their service is like thanking Uncle Bob for molesting your five year old son. 7 million tons of bombs dropped in Vietnam. F*ck you for your servicehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpZOko43920

Greg/February 14, 2020

Defiance Demon/February 13, 2020

Doug/February 13, 2020

Obama was not destroying the environment and was not attacking our allies. Obama did not believe the gas attacks in Syria were caused by ASSAD and did not react or send missiles into Syria.

Obama followed the rule of law during his Presidency. Improved medical coverage and added pre-existing conditions for everyone. Allowed kids to stay on their parent’s plan until age 26. Trump has countered all his actions and is destroying our health care with no replacement.

Levi Tate/February 13, 2020

minecritter/February 13, 2020

Obama broke the law when he destroyed Libya, and when he publicly proclaimed Chelsea Manning’s guilt during her unfair military trial. Secretary of State John Kerry admitted that the Obama administration intentionally let ISIS grow to try to weaken the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad. Obama lied when he said he supported a single-payer national heath insurance plan, and then he forced an unconstitutional Republican plan on us that still leaves thousands dead from lack of insurance. Obama built and bequeathed to Trump a “dictator’s tool kit” as Glenn Greenwald put it, by expanding illegal surveillance, suppression of independent media, and jailing of dissidents. Obama promised to put on his “comfy shoes” to march with unions, and he ignored that promise. Obama sent federal thugs to break up Occupy Wall Street as he ignored all the problems that people were there to protest. Obama drone-murdered a U.S. citizen, then his teenage son, and joked about it. Obama promised to close the illegal gulag at Guantanamo, and he refused. On the environment, he took a break from false promises to openly brag about how good he was for oil companies. He refused to stop the Keystone XL pipeline and actively helped the oil companies overcome the “red tape” of environmental law. Even his wildest pro-environment promises were insufficient to address the realities of global warming. He promised to stop handing out permits for mountaintop removal mining, and reneged. He made a show of pretending to drink tap water in Flint, Michigan, while leaving the people with toxic water and no accountability for the criminals who caused it. I recommend paying more attention to what politicians do than what they say.

Levi Tate/February 13, 2020

Very good list. . Without trying hard to be comprehensive I will add to your list. . Wall Street banksters went unprosecuted, in fact Obama bailed their azzes out. . People had Hoped Obama would improve race relations. $Funds$ and supplies for turning local police departments into paramilitary forces went to never before seen $heights$ under Obama. . The Saudi/US war upon Yemen started under Obama. . The US sponsored coup in Kiev, 2014, was under Obama’s watch. . The hyper-unconstitutional usage of the intelligence services to take out a Presidential candidate (Trump) was under Obama’s leadership (according to James Clapper). . The hyper-unconstitutional and traitorous coup making use of the intelligence services to force out a President (Trump) was under Obama’s leadership (according to James Clapper). .

Doug/February 14, 2020

I was focusing on the positive things Obama got down. He could not pass Medicare for all without Congressional support and it was not there. What he did pass was by no means a Republican plan as you characterize it. He brought many good things forward. Especially coverage of pre-existing conditions.

He was not perfect and I agree that he should have prosecuted many in the financial service industry.

He did support groups that took out a brutal dictator in Libya that had shot down a commercial plan with many Americans on board. I am not sure I feel bad about that.

He did support the growth of the fossil fuel industry so that the US would become independent of foreign oil. He also supported renewable tax credits which have been the basis for all our energy growth.

He supported the international agreement to reduce CO2 around the world with substantial limits on the US. The current administration trashed it. He spent 6 years fighting a Congress that opposed him from the outset.

Our current administration has gone to the brink of war with Iran. Obama had a nuclear agreement that was working.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I think the world and the US were a lot better under Obama. He got a lot done considering he had a Congress that opposed his every move.

minecritter/February 14, 2020

The Iran deal may be the only unambiguously good thing Obama did. Obamacare is the same plan as Romneycare. It is a Republican plan, and Obama had single payer supporter Dr Margaret Flowers arrested on a public sidewalk for trying to deliver a petition to him while he was having a fake photo-op with people in white coats to make it look like doctors supported his plan. He had public support that he kicked to the curb, and he gave away half the store before compromising with corporate congress to give away the rest. You give him credit for good intentions that are not in evidence. No one has claimed perfection is required to protect the 99% from the 1%. You think he spent 6 years fighting Congress, but he was in office for 8 years. What was he doing the other 2 years? He was protecting his corporate Democrat buddies from accountability by pretending they could not do anything when they had a supermajority. He bombed Libya as the establishment press cheered him for “taking out” a dictator, then left the country a failed state full of miserable refugees and literal slave markets, not to mention terrorist havens, while the establishment press turned away. You only think things were better then because Obama put a friendly face on our outrageously unjust system, and the establishment press helped sell that fantasy.

Step O'Rafferty/February 15, 2020

That commercial plane that you mentioned was blown up from the inside and it was a CIA operation. It was blamed on Libya because Libya dared to assert that they owned their own oil reserves. France and the UK were rabid in their attempts to frame Libya because it was their oil companies that had been looting Libya’s oil reserves until the oil was nationalized. Eventually America came to the party because of the gold dinar and they destroyed a country that was heading towards becoming a bastion of support for Africa against the neocons.

Joe Van Steenbergen/February 15, 2020

MEL/February 13, 2020

Robespierre/February 14, 2020

The partisan blinders in this country is incredible. So many people think if they are Team Red, then Team Red can do no wrong and if they are Team Blue then Team Blue can do no wrong. Yet, of course there is very little difference. ———— Just a few quick points. Obama destroyed the environment in his own ways. For instance, at the Climate Change conferences the USA was always pushing for lower cutbacks in emissions and highly riggable accounting schemes of carbon offsets. This is also “destroying the environment”, even if its slightly, and only slightly, more subtle. When the world really needs massive and quick cutbacks to emissions, Obama leads to extinction just as Trump does. Obama did not follow the rule of law. He attacked Libya with no legal justification whatsoever. No Congressional declaration of war. No fig-leaf authorizations. No UNSC resolutions. Nothing. Obama (and Hillary) just went in, raped the country, and turned what had been a stable country with one of the highest standards of living in Africa into a hellhole where now there are slave auctions. Same with Syria. Obama invaded Syria (boots on the ground is an invasion, no way around it) completely illegally. Obama continued the unconstitutional spying on Americans, and did Bush/Cheney one better by turning the spies onto his political opponents. Quit being a dreaming Democrat who loves fascism as long as the (D) is after the name.

Robespierre/February 14, 2020

Ah, the Support The Oligarchs “do nothing” position. This position says to change absolutely nothing from where things are today. But at least the radical in a cave can tell everyone how right they were, as the watch human civilization die without lifting a finger.

Step O'Rafferty/February 14, 2020

Living in a cave may actually be healthier than living in the stuffy polluted air and ceaseless radiation of apartments, houses and cities. Civilization has actually become very unhealthy and a cave in the mountains sounds pretty good!

Right on Caitlin! You’ve said in a few words what books, and plays and movies, poetry, etc. have said for decades, what the body politic knows to be true, but as you point out, the body politic simply wants to go back to sleep. “We delegate the responsibility to our elected officials, bedtime,zzzzzzzzzzzz.”

Paul Citro/February 13, 2020

I don’t think that they fear a Sander’s presidency will hurt the establishment. They can hobble him as they did with Jimmy Carter so he can’t do much damage.. But what they really want is a co-operative president which Sander’s may not be.

Khatika/February 14, 2020

It’s funny you mention Jimmy Carter. I have always thought he was by far the worst president in my lifetime. Not because he was corrupt because he wasnt. He was a terrible leader. Sanders on the other hand is thoroughly corrupt like all professional politicians.

Doc/February 13, 2020

Part of the “problem” is that those that wish to control us want us to believe that all of our problems in America come and go in 4=8 years cycles. Hence, vote for the next messiah. Our problems started a long time ago and continued to grow. I would suggest that the 17th Amendment to the Constitution was a huge nail in our coffin. Certainly the establishment of government Dewey camps started almost 70 years ago. IF and it’s a big IF we ever decided to restore our country it would take 35-40 years of dedicated, hard work. We can’t get folks to do dedicated, hard political work in the two years it takes to elected congress critters. I’m not optimistic.

Khatika/February 13, 2020

Caitlin please write an article on the games everyone is playing with the coronavirus. This type activity with gene mutation could one day decimate humanity. Governments and media are ignoring any references to possible origin from the lab in the same city as the outbreak. Mist times there are no coincidences.

I have been working to keep up with Wuhan coronavirus information here:http://www.johndayblog.com I just updated some important risk-factor information. STOP SMOKING! Smoking increases the ACE-2 binding sites for the virus in the lungs. Take 5000Uday Vitamin D3, to help your immune system do its job. Your immune system is the wonder-drug. Chinese Military now in charge. US military taking steps towards that.

Khatika/February 13, 2020

Democrats do not want to admit it would have been worse with HRC. We would be at full war with Iran by now. Trump is hated for all the reasons you stated plus the one you imply. He is getting in the way of the true agenda. I believe Trump is trying to hold off the warmongers the best he can but it is beyond his ability. Thus he says his personal belief of pulling out and then backtracks later when everyone around him push in the opposite direction. Yes he is a horse in the hospital. He is hated not for being a horse but for daring to come to their sacred institution and tell them what to do.

Anarcissie/February 13, 2020

Actually, we don’t know that Clinton would have started a war with Iran. Iran would be an extremely tough nut to crack, more like Vietnam than Iraq, and would have powerful friends whose reactions would be uncertain but probably rather hostile. The American ruling class is dysfunctional and not very brave, so they would probably have chosen to err on the side of caution and let things grind on as awfully as they had before. As we may observe post-Trump.

John McClain/February 13, 2020

Dear Caitlin, The whole notion here, is correct in the main, but leaves out a critical part. Many of us, who work, earn a living, and live in “fly-over country” were willing to vote for “Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck” rather than any “mainstream politicians”, and have for years, and while neither of those two ran, “the Donald” did, and despite my anger at his continued rampages, the simple fact no one can hide their face and pretend everything is copacetic, was important to me then, and now. As some commentator stated a few years ago, “Trump isn’t any different than our previous bad actors, he just does it in the open, in your face, and it’s actually kind of nice, hearing the facts as one will see them, spouted”. I’d like to go back to Barry Goldwater, as I spoke with my mom over, two decades ago, but there isn’t going to be another, nor another Ron Paul, we are in too deep, and far too many would rather bury their head deeper, than even consider “looking up”, because of what they know they will see. Just know the U.S. is shortly going to hit its dead end, run out of faith, money worthless, and we will be another fallen empire, for the same reasons the others fell. Semper Fidelis, John McClain Vanceboro, NC, USA

Seamus Padraig/February 13, 2020

David McVey/February 13, 2020

Under Bernie, America would go down like a turd in an automatic toilet. You won’t even have time to turn around and look at it. And his supporters? Don’t care about Representative Democracy or Capitalism, just pay off our student loans and give us free prescriptions drugs.

Anarcissie/February 13, 2020

Quoting David McVey: “Under Bernie, America would go down like a turd in an automatic toilet. You won’t even have time to turn around and look at it. And his supporters? Don’t care about Representative Democracy or Capitalism, just pay off our student loans and give us free prescriptions drugs.” (all following emphasis/capitalized in quotes of Mr. McVey’s words are added by me) > First of all, “UNDER Bernie,” ? The candidate that says “Not me, US!” professes a ‘plan’ to RESTORE CITIZEN REPRESENTATION to what remains of our nation’s democratic function. > “America would go DOWN like a turd in an automatic toilet. You won’t even have time to turn around and LOOK AT IT.” Down from where? “look at it” NOW! We ALREADY have over half OUR so-called ‘wealthiest nation on Earth’ CITIZENS, including over FIFTEEN-MILLION (15,000,000) US CITIZEN CHILDREN living BELOW POVERTY*, and INCREASING in homelessness, poor diet, poor health and lack of appropriate education every day. The ONLY government “jobs program” being the SOCIALIST Military Industrial Complex (feeding the psychopathy of corporate-think) which COMPELS our CHILDREN to FORFEIT their hopes, dreams, goals and CONSCIENCE and become MURDEROUS TORTURING WAR CRIMINAL TERRORISTS against sovereign foreign civilian citizens resulting in OUR ‘veterans’ returning ‘home’ to COMMIT SUICIDE at a rate of OVER 20 SUICIDES A DAY. That is TWICE AS MANY citizen/soldier SUICIDE-DEATHS >EACH YEAR “And his supporters? Don’t care about Representative Democracy” ? WRONG! Made obvious by the fact that “his supporters” are ATTEMPTING TO USE our CORRUPTED ‘leftovers’ of ‘representative democracy’ TO ELECT CANDIDATES who profess goals to eradicate INJUSTICE AND INEQUALITY IN “America”. ( Do you understand that when the WORD democracy is ‘capitalized’ it CHANGES THE MEANING OF THE WORD*** into a PRIVATE CORPORATION also known as the “Democratic Party” which obviously has nothing to do with “representative democracy”. ) > (don’t care about) “Capitalism” ? There is a bit of irony in that “Capitalism” (like capitalization of the word ‘democracy’) DESTROYS democratic-function, transforming it into ‘Democracy,’ a menagerie of CORPORATIONS, lifeless, psychopathic-by-charter power manipulators whose existence and “profits” are LEGAL FICTION used to control mass populations for the benefit of a few, bringing NEEDLESS SUFFERING OR DEATH upon billions of humans and trillions of other indigenous life forms. > “just pay off our student loans” that never need have existed by INCLUDING education in our tax-supported programs INSTEAD OF ILLEGAL AND IMMORAL WARS. Studies have shown that tax-supported INCLUDED (not “free”) education BRINGS IN 7 TIMES the cost through future tax revenue due to the improved income and conditions for those receiving the education. > “and give us free prescriptions drugs.” Drugs that most people would not require if not for our corrupt profit-motivated pseudo-healthcare mass manipulation in collusion with the “FDA” (poison) and lack of actual environmental protections (providing more poison) resulting in the current ‘toxic soup’ we call the planetary atmosphere. Create poverty, create FEAR, create STRESS, create poison “food-air-water”, CREATE ILLNESS, THEN Capitalism’s psychopathic corporations legal-fiction ‘profit’ off of the inadequate ‘solutions’ to the artificially created potentially existential ‘problems’. As has been said, ‘democracy’ is a terrible form of governance, it’s just better than all the others, I will say, Bernie Sanders is a terrible politician, he’s just better than all the others. (‘cept Tulsi!) “Ownership of Earth” is the foundational LIE of “civilization” that denys us cooperative co-habitation and compels dysfunction, injustice and inequality.

completing a sentence in my previous comment: That is TWICE AS MANY citizen/soldier SUICIDE-DEATHS >EACH YEAR< than the TOTAL that have died at the hands of "enemy forces" from 2006 – 2018 while 11,413 died from "occurred under circumstances unrelated to war"**.

JM/February 13, 2020

This is precisely the point I made to many Democrats who were freaking out right after Trump was elected. They acted like all of our problems began on January 20, 2017. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was the destruction of the working and middle classes in the U.S. — under both Republicans and Democrats — that caused the rise of Trump. Quite frankly, I’ve been impressed with how Trump has pushed back against the war hawks, even as they’ve put massive pressure on him to continue and expand their wars. I like his take on diplomacy and his insistence that we can accomplish more by being “friends” with others rather than bombing them into submission. …….

As for the poster, Dana, who is advocating for Bloomberg, that’s just hillarious. I’ve not heard nor seen any real support for him either online or in real life. I also seriously question the notion that Buttigieg is legitimately getting enough votes to rival Bernie. Something is very fishy about the first caucus and primary. I hope the Bernie team gets a handle on it soon. Our elections look more corrupt than ever right now, and I fear the people who are manipulating elections far more than I fear Trump.

jmg/February 13, 2020

Lee Camp (Feb 12, 2020): . “Is anybody else disturbed by the lack of exit polls in these primaries?? . “In most countries exit polls are used to prove fraud. They showed fraud in the 2016 primaries. . “So now the powers that be have gotten rid of the exit polls.” .https://twitter.com/LeeCamp/status/1227637236578996225

Marilyn Goodman/February 13, 2020

Great article Caitlin…and hey great that Dana spoke up! I have family in the USA they are fairly bright intelligent people,they are Democrats and they too believe everything will be alright if we can just get rid of Trump! Our challenge is to get out of our bubbles engage outside of them.Love Bernie,loved Jeremy Corbyn…but hey we have to deal with reality.Dana I have a question for you.How is the election of Bloomberg going to help the homeless person,the single mum rushing between 3 jobs just to make ends meet, the Syrian war widow who has lost 3 sons and her husband or the young African who has just been sold in slave market in Tripoli because Hilary Clinton ‘came saw he died’…please tell me.I think Bloomberg will get the nomination,after all everythings for sale in America.

Bo Larga/February 13, 2020

Anarcissie/February 13, 2020

If the author voted for Mayo Pete, as she says, she is a conservative, because Mayo Pete is a conservative, like all the leading Democrats seeking the nomination except Sanders. So it seems natural for her to find a Trump rally more alluring than the perpetual Democratic Party dogfight, where conservatives dominate but progressives sometimes make trouble.

Khatika/February 13, 2020

Sandra Gathercole/February 13, 2020

Realist/February 13, 2020

Breath of fresh air to lite on this web site which is an island of sanity assailed by the surrounding dark abyss that is the world wide web. Just fled from the phalanx of goblins expounding on the Nate (538 Pieces of) Silver site about how wonderful and exciting to see Mayor Buttmunch and Sen.Clobbershards come roaring from far behind Bernie in the polls to nearly overtake him in the election. Quite astounding really to read the ravings of what are clearly well-educated individuals (based on their vocabulary and syntax) in the public commentary section. Commentors (mostly) use the language properly (including many of the high-falutin words needed to ace the SAT’s) but their “facts” seem to come from nowhere, or quite frequently are substituted entirely with opinion, and the notion of cause and effect seems to be totally lost on most of them. It’s like a trip to Wonderland where a single premise can lead to multiple contradictory consequences, or where the queen brags about imagining as many as six impossible things before breakfast. However, none of Alice’s delusions were as preposterous as the scenario wherein a severely Russophobic warmongering Amy Klobuchar is the American leader sure to bring peace, love and soft-serve unicorn non-dairy frozen desert to the world.

foster goodwill/February 13, 2020

I think the biggest danger of more trump would be a plunge twords fascism. Also you didnt mention the supreme court fiasco and loading courts with his judges. And the epa fiasco, and global gag order etc.,which wouldnt have happened under a dem.(as bad as they are). My money and hope is on Bernie.

JWK/February 13, 2020

Wake up. Who is president has no bearing whatsoever on the enslavement of the people of the world. There is no significant difference between socialism and fascism. Both depend on the absolute power of government to control people, and extract their wealth. Neither has any inclination whatsoever to do anything that actually benefits their tax slaves. Socialism takes ownership of the means of production. Fascism takes absolute control of the means of production. What’s the difference? They’re all sociopaths. Any demonstration of compassion or concern is propaganda to promote and preserve their power and wealth.

Anarcissie/February 13, 2020

Socialism is supposed to be ‘the ownership and control of the means of production by the workers or the community in general,’ that is, workers’ cooperatives and the like, which is hardly the same thing as fascism and doesn’t seem very sociopathic.

Realist/February 14, 2020

Where on this planet can we actually find a genuinely “socialist” country? Such was not the case even in the Soviet Union. Maybe Cuba comes closest? Every country that tries to approach the socialist ideal (like Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba, etc) becomes an unrelenting target for exceptional America to sabotage, subvert and destroy. Some are disasters of their own making (N.Korea). Others socialist in name only but more dictatorial in practice (China) have been wildly successful, at least in terms of making industrial and technological progress, but are their people pursuing true happiness within the anthill? The only country given a wide birth by the indispensable ones seems to be Vietnam which rightfully bit this country on the ass for its attempts at overthrow.

Ms Johnstone it was an honor to read and re-post this brilliant article of yours. My spine is still tingling. You are so entirely correct. Many of the people I know that were blinded by the ” myth ” of Barack Obama are now beginning to see that no matter who the ” hood ornament ” is as United States president; the tank of imperial aggression just keeps rolling right along. This article of yours deserves the highest award humanity has to give. Ah, the Buddha Ms Caitlin speaks the truth!

potshot/February 13, 2020

Carolyn Zaremba/February 13, 2020

Thank you, Caitlin, for saying clearly and definitively what IS, not some vague half-truth out of someone’s cereal box. So-called progressives don’t like to hear about how Trump came into office. They prefer to believe that he and his fascists fell out of the sky like some unexpected space trash. They have no sense of history any further back than last week or else they have serious amnesia, OR they approved of things the way they were under St. Obama.

Dana/February 13, 2020

I love what you write, always. I love what you create. And I have always been a supporter of Bernie. But I think this time we really do need Mike Bloomberg. Given the way most Americans think, he’s the only one who can win against Trump and pull us back from the abyss. Bernie just can’t win, and its hard for people to unite around him.

Change and awakening are coming. But it’s going to be uneven, incremental. Mike Bloomberg is GREAT on healthcare and gun violence prevention and the environment.

Carolyn Zaremba/February 13, 2020

Khatika/February 13, 2020

MEL/February 13, 2020

Bloomberg is known to be paying shills online. She said she’s a fan but this is the first time anyone with that email address has ever commented on this site, and from her comment it doesn’t seem like she even read the article.

Dana/February 13, 2020

I cannot for the life of me understand how anyone who likes me could also like Bloomberg. All I ever do here is attack mass media narrative managers, billionaires, oligarchs, establishment manipulators and neocon war whores; Bloomberg is all of these things. Did you read the article I linked in my first response to you?

Dana/February 13, 2020

I was able to look at it; and I have read similar things elsewhere. I usually read many different perspectives. It is certainly possible to like the work of people who we might disagree with at times. I guess that’s become an outdated idea from classical liberalism, you know, the marketplace of ideas and all that. Old hat, it seems, but it’s what I do. It is also possible to believe in a vision (like yours), yet also believe that, at a particular time and place, the practical thing is to do what it takes to deal with a crisis (and I think Trump is a crisis)–even if doing so lacks ideological purity and congruence with what is truly best.

Anarcissie/February 13, 2020

Levi Tate/February 13, 2020

It may seem like she is kidding. . But she is a Democrat and was dead serious when she voted to send humanity into the abyss with WWIII Hillary Clinton. . Hillary Clinton told her multiple times and over a long period of time that she, Hillary, was going to shoot Russian planes down over Syria. That is war with Russia right there. Hillary believed escalation would not happen that the Russians would just back down and go home, Hillary certainly wouldn’t back down, but the Russians would. . Hillary would roll the dice with the fate of humanity at stake. . Hillary said this many times over a long period of time. It never registered with Dana, not once, you can bet on that. . People should have gasped each time Hillary said WWIII, it should have disqualified her from running for or having any power. But it never registered with Democrats, they tried to make her President. . Dana is not kidding, she is a Democrat.

Dana/February 13, 2020

Mike Bloomberg is once again buying human beings left and right to hide the fowl human being that he really is. All over this country Mike Bloomberg is purchasing ” human integrity” very cheaply. In these United States of America everything is about the ” god damn money “!

MEL/February 13, 2020

MEL/February 13, 2020

No, I don’t think that’s the idea, Dana. But I do think that if you keep studying and reading real journalists, you will eventually see the gaping holes in your argument, if you are sincere and genuine. I recommend Consortium News, the stellar site of the late, great journalist Robert Parry. Take a look. Read. Read. Read.

Realist/February 13, 2020

What have you been drinking, lady?

Bloomberg is a bald opportunist who’s held office as a Republican, run before as an independent and has now glommed onto to the Dems out of strict expediency. Actually, he’s more like Trump than any other candidate in the race, since Trump started out years ago as a Democrat spouting liberal notions. I seem to recall his bragging about bringing order to New York City by essentially continuing the authoritarian tactics introduced by Rudy Gulianni. Wasn’t De Blassio elected largely as a backlash against Bloomberg’s reign? Yeah, Mighty Mike might smatter a few “liberal” policies amongst what is sure to be a typical corporatist regime if they strike his personal fancy–like global warming and gun control (two of his favorites which, honestly and quite aside from the merits, are NOT popular with the general public).

Khatika/February 13, 2020

JWK/February 13, 2020

There isn’t any candidate for president that will solve any problem. The problem is that too many people think that if the “right” sociopaths are elected their life will improve. Government IS the problem, regardless who may appear to be in charge of it. It is totally dependent on the use or threat of violence to force its subjects to comply with its edicts. Edicts with the sole purpose of maintaining their power and wealth.

MEL/February 13, 2020

I am pretty darn certain that Bernie Sanders is no “sociopath.” He’s not a panacea either, but he is not consumed with greed and misanthropy. However, that is the case with Trump, Clinton, Obama, Bush, and in my view, Sneaky Cheat Pete, Bloombag, Biden, and likely, sadly, Warren who is prone to lying. Meanwhile, educate yourself on the difference between mild New Deal democratic socialism and real socialism. And if you are over 65 or so, I think you should give up your Social Security- it’s socialistic.

Erronius/February 13, 2020

Peter Mann/February 13, 2020

I offer my unreserved admiration for Caitlin’s incisive perspective on the upcoming election. This article firmed up my conclusion that Bernie Sanders is our only hope of reforming the United States of Prohibition. Thinkers of Caitlin’s significance are vanishingly rare, and i am delighted to have discovered her.

Realist/February 13, 2020

Well, Bernie (save for the real wild card Tulsi Gabbard) would be the only Democratic president who would raise a stink as the deep state and the oligarchy’s congressional tools endlessly roll him and block any policy changes from the current status quo–you know, what they’ve been doing to Trump for the past 3.5 years. At least under Bernie the public would be made aware of how they are only ignored, scammed, used, sucked dry and lied to by those running America’s government instead of being served by them. It will fall to a much larger group of activists beyond Bernie himself to change anything, and they will have to buck almost infinite dollar sources and a literal army of entrenched functionaries all benefited by and dedicated to the preservation of the current order. Maybe in the years left to him Bernie can motivate some like-minded altruists to organise, get elected and actually effect some changes in the way things are run around here. Probably not, though they say that hope dies last.

Peter Mann/February 14, 2020

Hi Realist. Your prophesy is noted. I do not agree. All the self-proclaimed realists i’ve encountered are devout materialists ; it’s a voluntary blindness caused by a virus in our cognitive software. After allowing reality to be what it actually is . . . by direct perception, one can gradually discover the realm of the miraculous. With such a powerless view, you must be very unhappy. One of my rules of thumb is never give up on the things i care about. Your post indicates that you are not in accord with this resilient controlledFolly. In the absence of defeated bitterness, i have come to a happier view : Bernie is an unprecedented phenomenon. This means there is no predicting where it may lead. Bernie is more than a politician, he is a force of Nature (like Winston Churchill, whom i admire unreservedly) Bernie + peoplePower is our only hope for a peaceful revolution. With Elizabeth Warren as his candidate for vice, together they provide a consistent continuity for their Presidential policy. Elizabeth lied about Bernie, and that was unnecessary. It might explain her loss of momentum, lots of us know how envy is such a dirty weakness. Bernie is the only person giving straight answers that make sense, he’s a seasoned fighter and unburdened by compromise or dishonesty. Trump thinks bluster trumps all other considerations because he’s been tolerated by the USA oligarchy, being allowed to win battles where he should have been stopped is a weak preparation for showing the world Trump unmasked. A self-induced plutocrat weakness, from making the rest of the obscenely rich look decent and law abiding. If Bernie is rebuffed this time, our best chance of evolving beyond the stone age is lost to despair and climate change.

Realist/February 14, 2020

With all due respect, who in the present Congress, Dem or GOPer, would be willing to stand with Bernie when he wants to introduce a budget that radically slashes the MIC lion’s share of our tax revenues and give that money to fund low cost college tuition (as was the norm at state colleges* across the country until all the money was sucked from the workers and directed upwards) and either implement his Medicare for all plan, or at the very least patch up Obama Care with a government plan to compete with the insurance companies. It was like pulling teeth to get Democrats to vote for a corporate health plan under Obama. Which of them (much more reactionary now) will support Bernie’s revisit to America’s best years? Name some.

[*For example, people forget that tuition at the University of California system used to be free until changed by Gov. Ronald Reagan back in the ’70’s. At most Big Ten schools, the annual tuition and fees amounted to a few hundred dollars back in the 60’s. Living expenses you earned over the summer if you did not have one of the many available scholarships.]

As to living exclusively in the material world, Yes, I’ve been a professional scientist all my life and have never seen a “miracle” that could not be explained by the laws of chemistry, physics and mathematical probabilities. If you are seeing them all around you, you are not collecting enough data.

Peter Mann/February 15, 2020

Being a scientist is no protection from ignorance about the capabilities of awareness. You probably think it’s all down to chemistry, even though the bandwidth of chemistry is 3 orders of magnitude too slow to explain athletic precision. It is well known that people see what they expect to see, and this includes notSeeing things that are forbidden by doctrine. Rupert Sheldrake does a meticulously thorough job of debunking your monotheism in his recent book “The Science Delusion”. I’m glad not to be as blind as you, with your pompous delusion of superiority. I’m an engineer, one of those that turn scientific observations into unprecedented innovations. Engineering is harder than science because we cannot hide our mistakes behind bullshit.

Realist/February 15, 2020

I see that limitless arrogance is part of the path to enlightenment you’ve decided to embrace, which sadly you cannot share with anyone else at the objective level. Go indulge yourself in your gratuitous intolerance and insults, but it won’t be in any exchange with me from this point on. That would be a foolish waste of time. The irony is your attribution of pomposity to others while you absolutely exude it. With NO due respect, bug off, ya jerk.

Peter Mann/February 17, 2020

Typical institutionalised scientist, cannot cope with dissent, just like every other form of religious zealot. You think you can insult Caitlin and i, then deny validity to the answer that puts your vague faith into perspective. Poor overEducated pocketPisser cannot discern between confidence and pomposity, despite being an expert in the latter. Reminds me of newAge parasites who believe everybody owes them unconditional love, even when they are nasty and useless. “I’m above criticism because i’m a scientist” is an echo of what priests used to preach about priests. “We are infallible because we believe alien {nonHuman} lies about what is not real.”

Lili-Ann Berg/February 13, 2020

Greg/February 13, 2020

It’s worth explicitly noting that Netflix cut out from their posted You-tube highlight the part of interest that Caitlin specifically refers to. If John Mulrany cares about that pithy addendum, and the full context of his work, he will need to refer folks to this column. Netflix ain’t interested in keeping his work complete and uncensored. The opposite in fact.

Obama was like smoking menthol cigarettes. Trump is smoking unfiltered Camels. The menthol tastes nicer, and numbs up the little airways as it goes down, so you take a bigger, deeper drag and do more damage. We need to get completely free of smoking stuff that slowly kills us. I advise people that the first step is to get off the menthol. Yuck-face…http://www.johndayblog.com

MEL/February 13, 2020

John Day, great doctor that you are- why can’t I post a comment on your excellent blog? I have tried several times and it won’t post. It’s your old buddy-gal friend from The Ark and the person you kindly precepted so well during my master’s NP program back in the late 1990s. Hey buddy! Love your blog. MM

“This is a matter of an entire police force, from sea to shining sea, which insists on the gratuitous use of violence and will defend anyone who uses it.” https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1269450962952810496